Good News for Workers & Families, Bernie Sanders Calls for Paid Sick, Vacation & Maternity Leave

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"Bernie Sanders Wants to Take Back "Family Values" from the GOP"

Yahoo Politics, June 11, 2015 by Meredith Shiner

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders doesn't like labels, perhaps because he's so often asked to explain his particular brand of political thinking in a word, but can't.
Sanders, elected as an independent, caucuses with Democrats and calls himself a "Democratic Socialist". And now that he's running for the White House, he'd like to keep busting categories and take back a key phrase from Republicans and redefine it for the 2016 election: "FAMILY VALUES."

At a breakfast with reporters in Washington on Thursday, Sanders previewed what he said will be a major theme of his campaign. "I will be talking about family values, but not the family values that my Republican colleagues talk about, which for them means that a woman cannot have the right to control her own body or that gay people should not have the right to get married or that women should not have access to contraception. That is what their concept of family values are about. That is not my concept," Sanders said at the breakfast, sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor Breakfast in downtown D.C.

"My concept of what family values is about is that the United States should not be the only major country on earth that does not guarantee paid family and medical leave when a woman has a baby. So that right now we're seeing a situation where a woman is having a baby and a week later is forced to go back to work because she doesn't have the income to stay at home and bond with her child," Sanders said.

He then outlined three family oriented policies that would be at the center of his "Family Values Plan": making sure that all Americans have 12 weeks of MATERNITY LEAVE, paid SICK LEAVE and 10 days a year of paid VACATION TIME. As he explained his agenda, based loosely on programs that already exist in European countries, Sanders voice took on the impassioned populist tone that has helped him draw bigger than expected crowds- "I have been surprised by the size," Sanders admitted Thursday in New Hampshire.

"It is beyond comprehension that again the United States of America, our great nation, is the only nation on earth that does NOT GUARANTEE SICK LEAVE. Sick leave!" Sanders explained. "Today, in McDonalds and Burger Kings all over this country, there are people who are sick, who are handling our food, who should be at home. There are mothers who are sending their kids to school because they don't have paid sick leave to take care of their kids. That is a family value," Sanders continued. "That when a husband comes down with cancer, that a wife has a right to spend some time with him at home. That is a family value".

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